


Haunt

by acetheticallyy (jacquesdernier)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes as the Winter Soldier, M/M, Recovered Memories, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-03 23:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2891786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquesdernier/pseuds/acetheticallyy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th fell off the train, so did Captain Steve Rogers</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [askboo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/askboo/gifts).



> Written for askboo over on tumblr for the stevebucky secret santa! Merry Christmas and I'm sorry I'm so late <3
> 
> A minor note for brief mentions of bad times with the scientists but it's really brief I promise and it's not overly detailed or anything.

_The metal siding of the train gives way and Bucky plummets to the ground, the air leaving his lungs so fast he has no time to scream. Steve continues reaching for him, even though he knows it's no use, and as Bucky falls, he follows._

* * *

When Steve wakes up there's a pain in his shoulder and an earsplitting scream filling the room. He looks to the side, ignoring the ache in his head and sees Bucky on a metal table, much like the one he had rescued him from in Zola's lab. Only here, it isn't German accents and needles; it's Russian accents and a saw cutting into his arm.

Steve tries to get up, to break free, but he can't. Whatever the Soviets had done to him prior to him waking up had basically rendered the serum ineffective. No matter how hard or for how long he tugged on the restraints, he stayed exactly where he was.

He screamed for his friend, yelled at the bastards that were torturing him, until his voice went hoarse and he could barely speak above a whisper. The last thing he saw was a scientist standing over him and the last thing he felt was the chill of being frozen as his vision faded to black.

* * *

Bucky didn't know how long it took but he knew it hurt like hell and he knew it felt like it had been days. At one point, he heard Steve yelling for him, but the sharp pain of his arm being sawn off at the shoulder kept him from uttering any actual words. Finally, blessedly, they knocked him out cold.

* * *

As the asset catches the glint in his fair-haired companion's eyes, something intrudes in his mind.

_There is a little boy, no more than eight or nine years old, with hair like sunshine and eyes like the summer sky. He looks up at you as you approach him and his eyes light up._  


_"Heya Buck," he says with a gap toothed grin. You sling your arm around his shoulders and call him 'Stevie,' whisking him away with the promise of letting him borrow the new comic book you got for your birthday._

He blinks, staring at the blond man in front of him with some confusion. It doesn't make any sense, but somehow he just knows that the man in front of him now is the little boy in the blurry image that was playing in his head.

The asset doesn't know why,  but he knows he shouldn't tell anyone about it and he knows he needs to keep remembering. They figure it out anyway. His mind is wiped clean and he's sent back to the field, with nothing in his thoughts but battle plans.

* * *

The blond finishes the mission and gives his companion a nod. They walk together out of the Burning building,  and the floodgates open wide.

_You're twenty years old and living with your best friend and everything seems fine. You don't have much but you get food to eat and clothes to wear and three old records to dance to in the afternoons when your lungs are feeling up to it. The cat on your fire escape scratches at the window sometimes, and if you have something to spare, you share your table scraps. Bucky says you need to stop feeding the damn thing, but you know that when you're not looking he scratches it behind the ears and leaves some water out so it doesn't get thirsty._

_You're coming home from the store because your boss sent you home early because your anemia had gone untreated for longer than it should have and you kept getting lightheaded and knocking things off the shelves when you grabbed them to keep your balance. You hear someone shout behind you, but you keep walking. It's probably no one. It usually isn't._

_Footsteps get closer and you recognize the voice as Bucky's. "Hey pal," he says, "I came to see ya during your break, what happened?" You mumble something about the anemia and Bucky goes silent but for a low hum of acknowledgement because he knows how you hate talking about your laundry list of physical ailments. It makes you feel a little better knowing that he came to check up on you, even though you know you can handle yourself just fine._

_You walk in silence for a while, and right when you think about telling him to go back to work or whatever he was doing before this, he slips a hand into yours for a brief second, squeezing your thin fingers before he pulls his arm back and his hand disappears into his coat pocket. You smile and you know that without a doubt he's doing the same._

The blond shakes the image from his brain, looking briefly at the brunette from the corner of his eyes. He bears a startling resemblance to the man in his daydream, but he can't figure out why he would imagine his partner and himself in a different time,  with different bodies and different attitudes, with smiles on their faces when the blond had never seen either of them smile once.

* * *

Steve is recovered first, because he is a national icon and nobody cares about Bucky Barnes unless Steve Rogers is with him. At least, that's what Steve tells Nick Fury, time and time again, if not in so many words.

"The other one, the brunette," he says, memories struggling to come through even though he doesn't know it yet. "You need to get him, he needs to be here."

"There was another one?" Fury asks, infuriatingly calm for someone with a name like his.

Steve growls between his teeth. For the life of him, he can't figure out why it's so important, but when he pictures himself without the brown haired man by his side, he feels a hollowness in his chest and a stinging in his eyes. He doesn't know who he is himself,  but what he knows for certain is that they need to get his partner back, because without him life means nothing.

* * *

It is two years before they find Bucky Barnes,  and Steve Rogers finally knows who he is, who they both are, even if he doesn't quite believe all his memories to be true and not something planted to make him feel safe. The memories with Bucky though, those are the ones he doesn't question, the ones he doesn't dare to accuse as being false. Because he knows, above anything else, that Bucky is the center of everything, the one who made him whole.

Bucky comes to him finally, warily, on a cold winter evening with circles under his eyes and a worn winter cap pulled over his ears. Standing out on his fire escape, he looks a lot like the stray cat Steve now remembers from before.

Bucky looks at him somewhat sheepishly from behind the glass and all the air leaves his lungs as he opens it up and invites his best friend inside.

"Bucky?"

"Steve," the brunette sighs, pulling him close.

"I'm glad you came back."

"Me too."

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Title from 'Haunt' by Bastille  
>   
> 2\. Thanks for reading!  
>   
> [newly edited as of May 29, 2015]


End file.
